


Skeleton Key

by Xenamorph



Category: Wizard101 (Video Game)
Genre: Child Abuse, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, First Kiss, Near Death Experiences, Past Child Abuse, Past Teenager Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenamorph/pseuds/Xenamorph
Kudos: 2





	Skeleton Key

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Neela bounced on her heels as she looked around, trying to make sure that no one was coming down the hallway. There's no reason for anyone to be there, but who knew who Belladonna had working in her house. She was obviously rich, she could afford having a maid or a butler or any number of weird live in assistents that could be walking down the way and see Jordan and Neela fiddling at a door that was definitely not supposed to be fiddled with.

"Positive, I grew up here, remember?" Jordan huffed, kneeling on the ground as she started to fiddle with the slowly forming key in her hand, "This'll unlock every single room in the place, I just have to finish it." A flick of her free hand, gesturing behind her, "Now go back to keeping watch, we should have time before any cleaners come in, unless Mom changed it." It was weird to hear Jordan call Belladonna mom, but Neela had gone under a lot of realizations since coming to Wysteria.

The realization that Jordan had only come to Ravenwood in order to sabotage the Spiral Cup tournament, that Jordan was rich (though Neela always had her suspicions starting from Jordan's attitude towards anything pricey). That Jordan's mom was a piece of work and it really wasn't a surprise that Jordan had latched onto Neela's family.

"Got it," The door clicked and Jordan stood up, pulling out the solid ice key from the hole and pocketed it, "Let's go," And in perfect timing, too, as Neela could hear distant footsteps coming around the corner and Jordan dragged her inside. Shutting the door behind them and leaving them in the dark as Jordan clapped her hand over Neela's mouth.

Distantly, they could hear the puttering of a few footsteps, almost a small platoon of maids coming as Jordan lifted Neela into her arms. Fewer footsteps after all, or at least that's what Jordan would tell Neela later because right now talking was extremely dangerous. It could alert one of the workers, or trip an alarm (and Jordan knew that there were so many annoying alarms set up in this place). Growing up here had been an ordeal, trying to handle everything at once. All of the magic and the spells and the condescending from her mother and the traps that lay in her own home.

The footsteps began to retreat and Jordan let out a soft sigh of relief, breath crystallizing in the air from her powers. Everything was going according to plan, and though they couldn't speak, Neela and she had created a sort of silent communication system for times like these. Times when anything spoken aloud would make everyone know that they were there, times when everything was going downhill and all they could do was offer silent support. It was a little bit of a thrill, knowing exactly how Neela was feeling just from a small gesture, and Jordan wouldn't trade that for all of the approval her mother had in that cold heart of yours.

Jordan reached down, grabbing Neela's hand and giving it three short squeezes. Light sparked at the tips of her fingers, barely larger than a birthday candle but it was enough to illuminate the place. Jordan was also an expert whisperer, having years of practice from having to sneak around her mother's office whenever she was working, and she got out, "We go forward now," in an odd sort of gutteral tone that definitely came from her Spirit magic lessons.

Neela nodded her head, long white hair drawn back into a low ponytail, and squeezed Jordan's hand twice. A silent 'I love you' and the reason that the request for light was so long, according to Neela, love came first (and Jordan had never understood that till now, till meeting Neela's family and truly understanding how cold her own life was). Together they began to slowly move through the room, Jordan's eyes locked on the ground to avoid any furniture with Neela looking ahead and trusting her to pull them both out of the way.

Silence had stopped being a comfort for Jordan around the time that she met Neela, had stopped being something that was a signal that everything was okay. The silence was starting to get to her, having gone so long with having Neela's laughter and words and comforting little affections that needed to be verbalized. It felt like walking in a mausoleum (and they had done that before, for less righteous reasons but morality never seemed to stay correct when her mother was involved), their steps barely sounding against the carpet. Other than the crunch of frost covered carpet underneath their feet (why was there so much ice here, Belladonna hadn't really ever cast much ice magic as far as Jordan could remember (and that wasn't a lot, Jordan's memory always seemed to skirt the edges of her life with Belladonna).

It was terrifying, and Jordan couldn't place why. There was a twisting in her gut, making her sway a little bit as she squeezed Neela's hand. A reassurance squeeze rather than any sort of request or command, Jordan carefully positioned her fingers to make sure Neela didn't misunderstand and fireball the door (and she was grateful for that, grateful that she had something to focus on instead of the ice covered gaps in her memories. Jordan loved a mystery, but she definitely didn't love being one.

Neela squeezed her hand back, the warmth of her body temperature was one of the only things keeping Jordan grounded. Neela was always amazing at keeping her grounded, and the fire danced on her fingers, changing color and flickering high and low to entertain and distract. Jordan loved her, she knew that with whatever was still in her chest after growing up with Belladonna as a mother.

They came to the door and it was almost entirely frozen over, the doorknob and lock were encased in ice. A little nod to Neela (it was a little brighter now that the fire was reflecting off of the ice) and the ice was soon melted. Jordan stared at the ice key in her hand, the cold was almost burning against her palm as she slipped it into the keyhole. It worked, Jordan knew that it would work, that's why she made it, but she was still terrified of what lay beyond the door.

This door had never been opened, at least not by Jordan. Even when she was growing up, it had been kept locked and shut and freezing (why hadn't she ever connected the freezing cold door with her mother using ice magic). Jordan hadn't even been allowed to question why, or what was behind it. So she never did because back then she was a good daughter. Back then she did everything her mother told her to, and didn't do anything that her mother told her not to. She had been a good daughter and now she wasn't both good or a daughter. 

She wondered just how much of her life she had lost due to being a good daughter, and the warmth of Neela's hand in hers was just one of them. There was a reassuring squeeze, one that popped the joints of her hand, Neela always gave strong squeezes that made everything so much better. Her hand pressed up against the freezing door and she pushed it open.

The opening of the door sent out a blast of freezing air, that made Jordan grimace and Neela shiver. The room was brighter than Jordan thought it would be, enough to the point that Neela dampened the fire on her fingertips. The room was blue lit, all ice and frost covering over the fixtures and Jordan could've (should've) gotten a better look if it wasn't for steps outside. Panicking (it was hard for her to not panic in this room, with all the empty memories of disobeying her mother and having to sleep at Edna Fugil's house), Jordan shoved both herself and Neela inside of the oddly bright room and shut the door behind them.

Her breath came in pants, and it was only the warm hand on her back that stopped Jordan from spiraling further. The breathing was clouds in the air, all frozen water droplets made visible and Jordan was solely focused on her breathing (getting it back to normal, she couldn't hyperventilate when Neela was watching that was a sign of weakness and Crisps are not weak), solely focused on making her chest stop heaving and her blood stop racing.

"Jordan?" Neela's voice was too scared for it to be something good, and the hand on her back was getting hotter and hotter. Neela always lost control of her body heat in times like these (times like what, what was she seeing that Jordan didn't? What did Neela find, what sort of skeletons did Belladonna have in her closet?), and the hand on her back was just the closest example of that. "Jordan, I think you need to turn around but I think you need to do it very slowly." Her voice was high and tight, and Jordan almost didn't want to turn around at all.

"Neel- what's going on?" Jordan chewed on her lower lip as she turned around to see what made Neela so scared. It took a few minutes for it to hit, because all she saw was ice statues. They seemed to glow from within, all bright light trapped within ice. She couldn't figure out where the pit in her gut was coming from, but she felt something slow and dark creep up on her. Jordan was deaf to Neela's soft warning as she walked up to the nearest statue. 

There was something so familiar there, something familiar with the statue, a little tickle at the back of her head. Even if a larger tickle was screaming at her to look away and stop thinking about it and just let everything freeze over. Just go back to thinking what her mom wants to think and-

"Oh my god," Jordan's breathing hitched as she stared up at the statue. It was familiar because it was her face, it was familiar because it was her mother's face and oh my god "That's my- that's-"

"Jordan I think we should go," Neela's breathing hitched as she looked around, moving to grab Jordan's hand. And it was burning hot (not like the ice of the long-melted key or the frozen door, Neela had some strange way of making burning pleasant), "This is. This is sick-" Neela sounded like she was about to puke, not that Jordan could really blame her for that. Jordan had been too in her own mind (could she be blamed for that? could she be blamed for focusing on herself as she stared at the room of frozen relatives) to realize how sickening this must also be to Neela. 

Having grown up in a family of all Thaumaturges (and for thaumaturges, their house was warm and loving in a way that Jordan had never experianced before), seeing ice magic used for something like this must've been horrifying. The knowledge of what her family could've done with their powers (what Jordan could do with her powers if she was just a bit more of her mother's daughter, if she was just a bit more desperate for her mother's approval). How ice could be used to destroy just like fire could, how dangerous these things could be. How dangerous magic was (and for a second, Jordan feels something dark inside of her stir as she thought that maybe the Empty wasn't so wrong to want to contain magic users), and how anything could be used to destroy.

It was only when the sun beat down on her face did Jordan notice that Neela had dragged her out of the house. No incidents (thank god, Jordan was almost positive that if she cast any ice magic she would throw up), but they were still hiding in the small cracks in between the classrooms. Jordan could feel the uncanny frost that came from the Spirit Classroom (it was always freezing in the room, Jordan could remember wrapping herself up in blankets and her mother's furs just to go to class) and she found herself sitting on the dead grass behind it. "Oh my god," Her voice was soft and broken (and weak, a poisonous voice that sounded too much like her mother's whispered) and her hands were shaking as she stared at them.

"That's, jeez-" Neela was obviously at a loss for words as she sat down next to Jordan, resting her head on her shoulder as she pressed herself up against Jordan. The warmth from her body was wonderful and relaxing, something so very different from the frost of her mother's house and that goddamn room. "Look- I don't know your entire deal with your mom-" Good, Jordan didn't think that she could properly verbalize just what her life was like before she met Neela- "But I'm here for you, you know that right?" Her head tilted a little, eyebrows just barely furrowed as she looked at Jordan. Her hands moving to right Jordan's face so that she was forced to stare at her.

That forcing also made her lips purse up and her voice come out a little muffled (which was better than anything else it could've been, it was better than weak), "I know."

"But do you _know_ ," She stressed the last word, the grip on her face lessening slightly as her hands slowly dropped to Jordan's shoulders. Warm and bright as the rest of her, Jordan felt her shirt grow wet as the frost that had formed on her melted just from Neela's touch. "Because I know we've like- barely have had any time at all to address the whole, you were a Pigswick spy thing but- that doesn't change anything for me. Unless you've been lying about everything and you're actually a completely different person and you're just a really good actress-"

"-I'm not, I swear. I've never lied about who I am as a person, not to you," the assurance came out in a rushed breath, like she couldn't force the words out fast enough to assuage Neela's fears. She could handle whatever that room meant for her mother, she could handle being kicked out of Ravenwood, she could handle never coming to her home again, but she didn't know if she could handle Neela hating her. She didn't know if she could handle Neela (and Neela's family but mostly Neela) mistrusting her and drawing away because of something that she had only done to make her mother happy.

"Then you're the Jordan I know," Neela said, like just by saying that she could make it truth, "It doesn't matter what you did, because that's not who you are now. Your mom is-" She paused, as if trying to figure out how best to insult Jordan's mother without insulting Jordan- "Your mom sucks. And I can't blame you for what you did to make her happy, okay? That's not what's happening here. You're my friend, okay Jordz?" A nickname that had gone through so much, them getting kicked out of Ravenwood together, them being odd and stupid teenagers (Jordan for the first time), them finding out about something so much bigger than them both. "You're my friend and I'm not letting you get out of that, okay?"

"Okay," The word was soft, but at least Jordan was speaking. Neela had been good at getting her to talk, even if she just wanted to curl into an internal ball and let her body control itself. Neela was good at a lot of things when it came to Jordan, "Okay." The repetition was a bit more solid, a bit more sure of herself as she nodded her head. Chewing on her lower lip and trying to bite and tug at the little bits of skin on her lower lips.

"Okay!" Neela clapped her hands, a little bit of sparks coming off of them as she grinned at Jordan. The grin was a little too wide, a little too wild and Jordan knew that they couldn't really run from what they had found.

"Should we- talk about the-" Jordan made a weird motion with her hands, trying to communicate exactly what they had seen in that god awful freezer of a room. "-Y'know the thing." Because that's all that she could call it.

Neela's smile faltered a bit and Jordan could've kicked herself for making her upset, "I- I mean I guess we should, shouldn't we?" Her hands started to fidget, with her hair and her clothes and her wand. The little wand that she mainly used for more complicated spells, spells that needed a little more concentration than Neela could usually summon up for closed circle combat. "I think- Jordan I mean they all-"

"-Looked like me, yeah I noticed," Jordan's shoulders slumped down and she chewed on her lower lip, "I think, I think they're relatives? Like definitely not far related I mean like, cousins or even- they might be my siblings..."

"I thought you- uh, I thought you said you didn't _have_ any siblings," Neela's eyes were slightly wide and round as she looked at Jordan, just barely leaning into her personal space (not that Jordan ever really minded).

"I thought so too but now like- Now that I think back on it, back on my life when I was living with Moth-" Jordan cut herself off, a little scowl working its way across her lips- "When I was living with Belladonna, there was someone else there. I can't remember their face, or their voice, but they were always there. And I think they may have been my older sibling, and I think they may have been in that freezer." Jordan glanced down at the ground, unable to keep eye contact with Neela, and she noticed that the ground under her had gone white with frost. There was a shattered circle of ice underneath her, only melting where Neela was leaning into her, and the dead grass was frosted over.

There were warm hands on her knees and when she looked up, Neela was staring right at her, "If you want, you can come live with me."

It was such a non-sequiter that all Jordan could get out was: "W-what?"

Neela nodded her head, affirming to herself that this is her decision, "I mean, I wouldn't blame you if you never want to see your mom again, and hell- if you'd let me I'd punch her right in the face for you! But, we're still kids! And I don't think you can live on your own- but if you can and this is like my overstepping that's totally fine and on me and I understand if you don't want to-"

"-Neela," Jordan said, a little tired at the moment because she normally loved Neela's rambling but right now she had a headache coming and she just wanted to go to sleep in their shitty twin bed and fall asleep in someone's warm arms.

"-You can come, and you can live with me. I mean, my family's already so fucking huge what's one more kid right?" Neela let out a high laugh, hands flexing as she fiddled with her hands. "So- if you wanted, you could come live with us on Colossus Boulevard, and you don't have to come back to your mothers. Only if you wanted, of course," She waved her hands around, trying to comfort her.

Jordan felt touched, and also a bit like bursting into tears. But she can't, because that would be weak but more importantly, it would make Neela panic. Still, her voice was choked up and watery as she nodded her head, "Yeah that sounds- that sounds really good, Neela. I'd love to come live with you." 

Neela's face lit up and Jordan knew that she had made the right decision, she lunged forward as well. Knocking them both against the wall of the Spirit classroom as Jordan grunted, the impact hurting just a bit, but a lot of it was all okay. Because Neela was hugging her so very tight and Jordan could feel the heat shared between them, and she loved Neela's hugs. "Okay! Okay! I'll tell my parents to expect the both of us- don't worry I already brought this up to them before and they're totally on board with this- coming home and uh-! Do you have anything you need from your room?"

Jordan hummed, a little frown on her lips as she thought back to what she had in the house. "Yeah, no I definitely have things I need," There were the normal things, like clothes and favorite blankets and such, but there was also more. There were favorite books, a childhood stuffed animal (shaped like a Blue Ox from the storybooks that her nursemaid had read to her), and childhood toys that Jordan always fantasized about passing on to a daughter that she would actually parent. And of course, she has to tell her mother.

Neela might expect (or even want) Jordan to leave without telling her mom, but Jordan hated leaving things untied. Hated having loose ends dangling and taunting her, and she needed that closure. She needed to tell her mother what she knew and what she was doing because she had to close the book, she couldn't let Belladonna (not her mother, Edna was more her mother than Belladonna ever was) have any more power over her. She couldn't let Belladonna think she won the battle or the war or anything, and Jordan had to make that clear to her mother.

She went back to her childhood house (house, not a home, there were so many differences between the two) at night, it was dark and moonless (Jordan hated moonless nights). First to her room, spiraling herself up to the window (like all good princess towers, she only had one window) on a pillar of ice that melted as soon as her feet left it. The bag (bottomless within a certain degree, but bottomless for what she needed) was soon stuffed with everything that she had good memories of. It was almost sad how few things had good memories attached to them, and how many of the things had bad memories attached to them. 

Jordan had to work to make her steps pound out against the ground, to stop being the silent little waif that her mother tried to force her to be. Too many times she went down these steps on silent feet in order to make her mother happy (more to stop her mother from being angry, making Belladonna happy took a secret that Jordan still didn't know), and she was past that. She was past so many things now. Belladonna was just where she was supposed to be (expected to be), in her office and Jordan shoved the door open.

"Oh, Jordan, you've finally come home," Belladonna's voice was condescending, but proud. Why was she proud now, why now did Jordan finally please her mother? It was unfair, horribly so and Jordan felt like punching her face in. "You've done a fantastic job at that Ravenwood School, so much chaos they could never stand up to our amazing team now!" Her smile faded into her classic half scowl-half pout, "Though, I could do without you have being expelled."

"The only reason Pigswick wins that fucking cup is because you teach them how to cheat," It wasn't even the biggest issue, but it was all Jordan could bite out through her rage. Her hands were trembling even as she clenched them into fists, ice forming gauntlets over her hands as she glared at her mother. "And I'm not letting you do this to me again, mother!" Ice shattered out from her hands, the gauntlets all jagged and rough and dangerous. There was a lot about her that was dangerous right now, emotions spiking and anger making her feel so much more powerful than she actually probably was.

Belladonna paused at that, and Jordan felt a sick sort of enjoyment from finally being able to shock her, "Well, that's very rude of you." Finally, Belladonna looked up from the papers that were more important than her own child, "And what are you doing with that bag? Really, you're just being ridiculous now, go put your things back. Since Ravenwood has no chance of winning the Spiral Cup, there's no reason for you to still go there. Even if you technically don't go there anymore," A little sneer overtook the frown, her top lip raising up (and Jordan hated how similar they looked in that moment, how similar they were when they showed their distaste). "So you'll be reinstated to your Spirit school classes with Miss Fulgin, I'm sure that you're rather enthused about that."

"I'm not going to go back to this school," Jordan scowled, knowing that ice had started forming underneath her feet, "I'm not going to be a pupil in this school of- of cheaters and frauds!" She knew that she was being proper, even though she was angry at her mother she couldn't stop herself from being proper. From being a Crisp and being uptight and proper and prim like she was constantly wearing a corset. "I'm leaving, tonight! My friend Neela is letting me live with her." Jordan couldn't stop the warmth that entered her voice when she spoke about her friend, about how kind Neela was to welcome her into her home.

"Oh, great, now you're going to be a burden on someone else's family, really Jordan this is going too far now. I understand that you're young and foolish, but you are taking this too far. You're going to go to this- Neela and you're going to tell her that you're rejecting her offer. Then you're going to return your things to your room and you're going to sleep," Belladonna gave a little dismissive flick, like she was expecting Jordan to just obey. 

Jordan felt a cold heat of rage come over her, as Belladonna tried to turn Neela's a wonderful offer of companionship and safety into an obligation. Into something ugly and twisted and disgusting to make Jordan feel small about herself. "No, actually, that's not what's going to happen. I'm going to leave with Neela, we're leaving tonight, and you're never going to have any power over me." Sure, she seemed a little stiff and obvious about what she was doing, but she had to with her mother. She had to put everything on the line and make Belladonna understand just what she was losing.

Belladonna scowled, shifting up from her desk to tower over her daughter. It was annoying, honestly, how Belladonna's desk was raised up on so many steps so that no matter how tall people were she was always above them. There was something dangerous in her posture as she glared down at her daughter, her simple wooden wand clenched in both hands (and that was the only sign that she was in anyway affected by her child's words), "Now, don't be rash, Jordan. I will always be your mother, and you will always be my daughter."

That got a laugh, not a good one though. It was high and bright and cracked like ice on a lake, dangerous and sharp around the edges, "I'm not even a daughter! I'm no one's daughter and no one's son!" That was a conversation she would never have with Belladonna, there would be no soft conversations about Jordan's newly discovered relationship with gender. There would never be an answer, never knowing if Belladonna would accept or reject her as she is. No actual resolution to that problem, but Jordan couldn't let herself dwell on that. She would be able to have that conversation with Neela, and Neela would understand in her odd constant way and Jordan would cry in her arms and Neela would hold her. 

"You're being delusional now, Jordan. You're my daughter and I'm your mother, that's how this works. And no matter what that friend of yours says, her parents could never actually understand you. You're a Crisp, you're better than them by nature and you would never fit in. You'd just be a burden, like you were on Ravenwood," The words hurt, as much as Jordan wanted to say that she was immune to her mother's cruel words she wasn't. She was a child (and she was, she was only 14 and she was doing things that no child should have to do) and she loved her mother (barely though, barely hanging on by a single thread of memories that Jordan could no longer trust). And her mother hurt her, _is_ hurting her. "Now, go tell that friend of yours that you've changed your mind and you can finally get back to what you were born to do."

"Oh?" Jordan's voice was brittle, not as strong as it was, but brittle and sharp, "And what is that? What was I born to do?"

"To succeed me, to eventually be something that I could be proud of. You're getting there, but if you continue this stupid teenage rebellion of yours you'll never be able to do it," Belladonna slowly descended down the steps of her office. The clack of her heels on the carpet going through it as she made slow and purposeful steps, there was no rush here. Belladonna never rushed for anything, not for Jordan's injuries, not for Jordan's tears, and not even for her anger. "Don't you think you're getting a tad old for this? You could easily become our star student but instead you just do this." Again, her upper lip raised as she flicked her hand up and down Jordan's body.

At the robes that were just a bit tattered at the edges, just a little burnt and frosted and mended over and over again. At the boots that gave a solid three inches to her height, all steel toed and made for combat in both circles and not. At the hair that had been shorn all off and frosted over till it was white. Jordan hated the instinct in her to cover up and brush off the frost and try to make herself into something her mother would enjoy to look at, "Why would I want to be the star student of Pigswick? Everyone here either cheats their way through anything, or can't fight at all! Being the star student here means nothing, everyone knows it means nothing! This entire school is bullshit and built on a lie!" Ice shattered out from her foot as she slammed it down on the ground, "You and I both know that the fountain outside the tournament hall has no magic! You and I both know that barely anyone at this school _has_ magic!" Jordan made a wide sweeping gesture with her hand, sending out a wave of frost that just barely made Belladonna totter on her heels.

The change was immediate in Belladonna's face, a curtain being drawn over the sun and making the room seem so much colder, "I think you should shut your mouth for once in your pathetic life, Jordan Crisp." She didn't need to yell, the soft tone was enough to send a shiver of fear down her spine, "You have no clue how the world works, and, I suppose that I could take some blame for that, but I thought that allowing you out into the world would be a good thing. But now I see that that was a huge mistake," Belladonna moved like water down the stairs, gliding and careful in her carelessness as she moved to come to a stop in front of Jordan. Her hand was cold against Jordan's face as she tilted her head up, "You should've stayed home, maybe Ravenwood would've thrown itself into chaos by itself and you'd still be on the path to perfection."

"I would rather throw myself off the edge of a world," Jordan hissed out, hyperbole but Jordan wanted to try to hurt her. Jordan wanted to try to hurt Belladonna just how she hurt her, but judging by the lack of emotion on Belladonna's face, she failed. "I'd take getting thrown out of Ravenwood one hundred times over being your perfect _daughter_ ," She spit the last word, annoyed with how poorly it now fit.

The hand against her cheek turn almost burning cold, painful and numbing as Belladonna frowned (not even a scowl) down at her, "And here I thought you'd finally be the perfect one, here I thought I had made something to be proud of." The burning numbness started to travel down Jordan's body, covering her left side first. She couldn't feel her fingers soon enough, and opening her mouth to talk got it stuck halfway, "I know that you saw that room, Jordan, your little friend there was so very bad at properly closing it up. Not that I wouldn't have noticed due to that melted door, but really. If you were going to betray this family, you should've chosen a smarter person to do it for."

Jordan wanted to say something so badly it hurt. Lots of things were hurting, the feeling of ice stealing down her body (and that's what it was, ice, her mother was freezing her just like she froze everyone else in that room), but she wanted to say something. She wanted to defend Neela and her family, and her humor and the way the light reflected in her dark eyes and the way that sparks flew from her hands whenever she clapped or made gestures. How warm Neela made her feel, how wonderfully safe Neela made her feel.

But she couldn't talk, and feeling was slowly draining away from almost her entire body. If she looked down (if she could look down, her neck was frozen and moving her head seemed like a Herculean task), her body was probably ice. Just like all of those in the freezer and oh god- Neela. Her mind kept drawing her back to Neela and Jordan realized that she wouldn't get a chance to know what happened. That Neela could easily convince herself that Jordan rethought her agreement and was hiding away from her, that Jordan was avoiding her. That Neela would never find out that Jordan was just another frozen corpse in the strange room that they had found together.

It was enough to let a tear (one tear, that's all that her body could push out) dribble down her cheek, but it froze before it even reached her chin. Everything about her was frozen now, just bones encased in ice (unlike the others, the others just had something light and bright inside of it but Jordan hadn't reached that point. And for now, she was settled into a slot in the room. In the room itself, not even shoved to the back of a closet or a freezer, just displayed in the room itself. A statue of daughterly perfect, at least if you didn't look too close.

No one at this school looked too close, no one ever went looking for things that weren't in front of their faces and Jordan knew that she wouldn't see the light of day again. That she would melt or shatter or be smashed by a raging mother long before she would ever feel human warmth against her again.

But, thankfully (so very thankfully), she was wrong. Coming out of the ice was painful and Jordan almost immedietely fell to her knees, or at least would've fell to her knees if Neela hadn't caught her. Neela, all fire bright and shining and warm as she brought Jordan back to her feet. smiling at her with soot and ash on her face and fingers as she cupped Jordan's face. And Jordan realized three things.

One, Neela had kissed her to break her out of the spell. Neela had pressed her warm (soft, Jordan's mind supplied) lips to Jordan's frozen ones in the off chance that it would break the spell, and like in all of her storybooks, it did. True love (and Jordan couldn't let herself think about what sort of love they felt for each other) broke the curse and melted the ice and now Neela was the only thing keeping her upright. To be fair though, Neela was usually one of the only things keeping her upright.

Two, they were outside. The wind was blowing (not that Jordan could feel it with the warmth from neela) and the moon was bright and shining (wasn't it moonless before? How long had Jordan been trapped in ice?). They were in front of the Spiral door and there was a furrow in the dirt and mud on Jordan's feet and she realized that Neela probably dragged her frozen body across the plaza and into the small area of the spiral door. 

Three, Neela's eyes were shiny (from the moon and the tears that were rolling down her cheeks) as she cradled Jordan against her.

"I was-" Neela's voice broke as her hands ran across Jordan's face and shoulders- "I was so scared that wouldn't work, I thought that I'd just lose you forever and you'd be stuck as an ice statue forever and I would never be able to tell you a lot of things and a lot of jokes and funny stories from my family. And oh god my family's probably so worried about the both of us because I told them we'd be back last week, but then you went missing and I knew- don't worry I knew- that you wouldn't just ghost me like that so of course I started working on finding you, and then I didn't! So I got worried and I went to literally the last place I'd ever check to ask your mom if she'd seen you- and then I see you!" Neela gasped out, the tears now starting to roll down her full cheeks. "I saw you, and you were just ice and bones, Jordz. You were just ice covered bones and your mother looked so smug and-"

"I'm hoping that this story ends with you punching my mother in the face," Jordan's voice was rough and raspy, but she still found it in her to crack a smile. It was easy to smile around Neela, and the question made her brighten up (impossibly so, Neela was already so very bright).

"Actually, funny story...I may or may not have briefly set your mother on fire," Neela let out a stuttered laugh, like she was expecting some sort of condemnation for hurting Belladonna. But there was none of that to be found, just a loud echoing laugh from Jordan that bounced off the ivy covered walls as she shook in Neela's arms. She didn't stop shaking, and Neela swore, "Oh- god yeah you totally have, like, hypothermia or something let's get you home." And with a key that definitely wasn't the one to Ravenwood, she slipped it into the door and opened it.

The doorway showed a warm home, loud chatter and happiness that Jordan found painfully alien. It was Neela's home (and now Jordan's, it was their home now), and a woman who looked a lot like Neela moved towards the doorway, "Oh, there you two are!" Neela's mother looked a lot like Neela, the same kind eyes, the same sort of soft smile. Just older, with a few more wrinkles around her eyes and her forehead from smiling too much. "We've been worried sick about the two of you, come in come in!"

Neela's family home was cold, but it was so much warmer than anything Jordan had experienced before. The frost on the window did nothing to make the place seem any less homey, any less comforting, and even though Jordan shivered as she crossed the doorway into the home, she felt something warm in her gut. Something warm and affectionate as she found herself swept up into a close hug by Neela's mother (her mother now? was this adoption or just kindness?).

"I want to hear the entire story, you two gave us a good scare with you being a week late," Neela's mother drew back and took Jordan's hands in her weathered ones, a little frown forming on her lips as she noticed the little black flecks on Jordan's fingers, "Oh dear! This looks like frostbite, we better get you closer to the fire!" It was kind and motherly and a little overwhelming to the point that Jordan found herself blinking back tears as the woman led her to the kitchen. "We have an old family secret to combat frostbite, just something to lessen the affects and make it all a lot better on you."

The wrap on her fingers tingled and made her want to unwrap the bandages just to scratch at her fingers, but she knew better. Neela started on introductions, a whirlwind of cousins and siblings and aunts and uncles and even a set of grandparents all living in the same home (and Jordan realized just how lonely her own upbringing was). It was a little hard to keep straight, and Jordan had the need to escape after three hours. Not escape, that was too cruel a word for it, but Jordan quietly excused herself and moved up into a small balcony of one of the rooms.

Door shut behind her and her bare arms pressed against the freezing cold rail as she breathed in the cold air. It was a little grounding, being alone and away from the noise, and even the click of the door opening behind her couldn't jar her out of her thoughts.

"Hey," Neela's voice, however, easily could get her out of her own mind as she moved to stand next to her. The mere presence of the pyromancer was enough to make the frost start to melt, and she leaned against the railing to stare at her, "You okay?"

"Yeah," Jordan's voice was soft, and she redrew the frost on the railing as she thought on her words. She was okay, as okay as she could be expected from everything that happened. Being frozen by her mother, being unfrozen with a kiss from someone she thought she had a purely platonic relationship with, realizing that her feelings for Neela Kumar were no longer entirely platonic. It was a rough few days (week, she reminded herself, her mother had kept her frozen in ice for a full week and it was only because of Neela that she wasn't a corpse of ice).

"It's okay if you're not, you know?" And once again Jordan was struck by how good Neela was at reading her (it had been a year since they met, since Jordan only called her Kumar and now Neela could read her like an open book). "Like we've been through a lot, _you've_ been through a lot in the last few weeks. I know it's really really cliche, but it's okay to not be okay, y'know?"

"Yeah, yeah I know," Jordan let a little smile quirk her lips up as she reached over to pat Neela's hand, sending frost spiraling from her hand and making pretty designs on her dark brown skin, "But, I think I'm at least getting there. And that's okay right? It's okay to be getting to okay?"

"Yes! Absolutely!" Neela enthused, eyes sparkling in the dim light of the stars and the moon, "I'm, really glad that you're not comatose, or still an ice statue. It would, really suck if my adventuring partner was just a block of ice that I'd have to lug around." She laughed, but it was tight and sad and Jordan gently knocked up against her.

"Hey, you melted my ice and now I'm back, and I'm not leaving you again," There was another layer to her words and Jordan couldn't resist leaning into Neela's personal space, head slightly tilted towards her as she smiled, "And I'm pretty damn positive that if I did get frozen again, that you'd be able to unfreeze me again."

Neela huffed, pushing at Jordan's chest a little and rolling her eyes, "You better not be planning to get frozen again just to get another kiss."

Her heartbeat was loud in her ears and she arched an eyebrow and tried to put on a facade of suaveness (Neela always saw through every single one of her facades), "Well, how else am I going to get you to kiss me?"

"By asking, dumbass," Neela said it like it was obvious, sending Jordan through a loop, and then leaned in to kiss her. Sparks flew, quite literally as Neela's fire powers reacted with Jordan's ice ones, and the kiss was soon broken as Jordan lunged back to pat out the flames that had sprung up on her clothes. "Oh- aw jeez! I hope that doesn't happen the next time I kiss you!"

"N-next time?" Jordan stuttered out, still a little disoriented from the kiss and the fire that she was still putting out with her magic.

"Yeah, duh!" Neela was as unphased as she ever was, and she grinned wider as she settled her hand on Jordan's shoulder, "I mean, I kinda figured that we'd be a thing now? Like a girlfriend...girlfriend? thing?" Her voice was a little high pitched with her question, a little laugh ending her question as she ran her hand through her hair. Tugging at the ends and Jordan realized that her silence was definitely not helping.

"Yes- I mean! Yes, I'd love to be your girlfriend? The question mark is needed," She gave a little laugh, reaching out to cup Neela's face and tilting her head to kiss her again. Sparks flew, but this time metaphorically as Jordan felt something wonderfully warm and affectionate bubble up in her chest. 


End file.
